A Christmas Message

Nope, I’ve not turned into the Queen (not my style darling) but as a year of running closes, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a little piece to look back on the year, and to reflect.

Christmas for runners can be a nightmare – endless parties, copious amounts of food and seeing your end of year stats on Strava can be depressing. But soon you’ll be waking up to a running book, running socks, running lights and a Chariots of Fire DVD (reduced to 59p) because that’s what your loved one thinks will make you happy – yes forget the Pandora bracelet, or Mum roll on deodorant, and of course Lynx Africa for the men – they belong to Christmas past – this is Christmas present. Note to the BBC, there is no point in redoing Scrooge for TV – if it has no Kermit then it’s not a Christmas Carol (mind you the current TV adaptation showed a camel which really annoyed me, as it wasn’t in keeping with the book. Whereas a talking pig, frog and rat are absolutely acceptable!)

Anyway back to the running review…….

First up you may have noticed that the newsletters of late have become non existent – bit like Prince Andrew at Sandringham! This is because there are simply too many members, and too many events for me to even contemplate keeping up with! In fact Peter Bell alone would fill up these pages with all the events he enters. Therefore it is with grateful thanks to Vince Lawlor and Louise Hogan, that our weekly roundups are already provided.

But as it’s Christmas Eve, and most of you are eagerly awaiting the influx of relatives, that for most of the year you avoid (don’t give grandpa the sprouts!), I thought it was time for a little revival.
Striders have been competing, running, and in some cases hobbling, all over the UK and beyond.

To kick things off, the London Marathon earlier this year was our first biggie event as a club, and seeing all of our members, whether running for the club or for charity was a particular highlight. However as a club we’ve seen more Marathons than even a Mars Factory Worker this year!  Newport, Brighton, Stratford upon Avon, Liverpool, Richmond, Snowdon, Boston and New York have all been on the list. And I’ve loved either supporting or reading about each one (more so because I didn’t have to do them).

We’ve also had the Endure 24! Yes some of you enjoy camping about even more than Alan Carr, but for me, sitting in a damp pop up tent ain’t my kind of fun. But the runs were great, and seeing Lorraine and Tracey strut their moves on the dance floor kinda made the weekend!

Ironman, for those that like a little variety,  also saw a few Striders competing, with two becoming official Ironmen! No doubt a few more will be added to the list in 2020! Big well done again,  to Leigh, Mark and Gav!

On top of the above there’s the usual West Glam Cross Country runs and the BCRL’s, and whilst West Glam attracts a lower number of members (must be the rain, mud, two laps and trying to overtake a Swansea Harrier that might put a few off), there is definitely now at BCRL, a yellow wave to counter against the blue wave! Kudos to Vince Lawlor for doing all of the West Glam runs last year, and kudos to all of us as a club in not being last in the BCRL League position table (I’ve always had a fondness for the Pencoed Panthers).

Of course we have also entered a tump load of half marathons and 10k’s. Mind you this is also the year of the Kipchoge shoes! Yes you can shave 14 hours off your marathon times but you also need to have the ability to spend the equivalent of a Mayfair maisonette to get them. Or like Sean Parry you can run in Tesco value daps costing 99p and still grab all them PB’s. But whether you have performance enhanced shoes or not the effort from you is still very much required, and the amount of PB’s seen this year has been phenomenal!  Ross Purchase ran a fantastic race in the Cardiff Half Marathon, Dave Cascarina, Justine Dawkins and Nikki Dowie grabbed themselves a good for age, and Lu Rees has had more PB’s of late than Kipchoge himself. Loads more to come in 2020 no doubt!

Of course parkrun continues its weekly onslaught. This past year has seen a big rise in tourist parkruns, so much so, Vince’s ‘Life at the Back’ posts are becoming a bit like a Thomas Cook poster (don’t go bust though Vince!) but there is life beyond Porthcawl, and a little adventure now and then can allow for new experiences and meeting new runners. But Porthcawl will always be home – I do miss Stewart doing his Darth Vader impression on the megaphone, and I even miss the person carrying a ‘silence please’ board like some evangelist trying to warn us that the end is near!

Big shoutout to the walkers as well – they tend to hibernate in the winter months, but they will soon be active again when the evenings get a little longer (and warmer), but they are essential to our club, and welcome the injured souls with open arms. Thank you also to all the volunteers that help to make our runs happen, from LiRF’s to marshals to committee members to all of you!

Still Christmas will soon be over. It’s almost time for the Poundland sale, bloated bellies, and the wonderful world of indigestion! It will also be time for ‘my year in running review’ that pops up all over Facebook like Noel Edmunds at Christmas, which if you are currently injured is very depressing to read – To help, mine this year will continue to be short  – instead of ‘still shit’, it will change to ‘slightly better’.

So a merry Christmas to everyone one of you, and I wish you all a very healthy and productive New Year. I’ll see some of you on the Boxing Day run (thankfully it’s now officially self timing!) and I’ll be taking on the megaphone duties on New Years Day!

Happy Striding for the rest of the year and for 2020.